Plumb Lines Don’t Lie

Amos 7:7-15

When I was reading Amos chapter 7 this week and reflecting on what the lectionary had for us in worship, I came across this carpentry tool called a plumb line. I know what a plumb line looks like, but I didn’t really understand why it was important or how it was used. But this “plumb line” was being used as a compelling metaphor in the passage we are going to hear this Sunday:

“The Lord was standing beside a wall built with a plumb line, with a plumb line in his hand….then the Lord said, “See, I am setting a plumb line in the midst of my people Israel.”

Plumb lines are used in carpentry to make sure things are truly vertical. When someone is building a house, they want the wall to create a 90-degree angle with the floor. The wall must be vertical and “true” from top to bottom. And the tool that works best for this, better than a level or anything else, is ancient enough to be referred to in scripture! Carpenters still use plumb lines today when building walls to ensure they are truly vertical and not slanted. A slanted wall would create structural issues with an entire building.

Plumb lines provide a point of reference. They provide an “absolute truth” about whether or not something like a wall or a fence is really vertical and not leaning one way or another and thus unstable.

When I look around at our country, at our world… when I behold all of the violence and fear… I think I understand the power of a plumb line if such a thing could be created for us to measure our morals, our politics, or our faith.

Plumb lines don’t lie.

And there are a lot of lies out there to distract us! Whether it’s prosperity gospel, blind politically partisan loyalty, or ethics based on values that confirm our biases more than establishing real goodness in the world, the amount of lies with which we could base how we should live our lives out there is staggering. We need a plumb line!

And we are told to use a lot of things as plumb lines in our lives aren’t we? As kids, our plumb line is our parents. In our teenage years our plumb line becomes harder to find, perhaps it is our faith, or maybe it is a leader we find inspiring. For me, my plumb line growing up was a certain kind of Christian faith. But then that plumb line proved not to be as true as I thought. What should our plumb line as followers of Christ be today?

Even finding the plumb line in 2024 is incredibly difficult. We live in a culture that is very casual about alternative facts, we can find sources of information that feed our biases, and we can live in manufactured echo chambers on social media that reinforce whatever we want our plumb line to be.

And in that environment, some of us search for the plumb line in moderation for the sake of moderation. Perhaps in this world of extremes, the truth is in what isn’t extreme! And yet even moderation has untruths like false equivalency and moral ambiguity. In moderation, if something feels like conflict it must be wrong. I don’t think the plumb line is where we find the least conflict.

So what is our plumb line? In the case of Amos 7, God sent Amos as a prophet to be the plumb line for his people in the Kingdom of Israel in response to the transgressions of King Jeroboam. But what might our plumb line be in 2024 when there are so many false prophets, so many competing values, and so many moral platforms from which so many people are crying out?

I want to be honest with you as a pastor, I don’t think I have a satisfying answer to this question for you or myself. And so, I find myself turning toward the wisdom of apophatic discernment, that is, while I am not sure what the plumb line is, I feel confident that I know what it is not.

As we search for the plumb line God is placing in our midst, we can rely on the fact that if that plumb line leads us to see any fellow child of God as less than beloved, then it is false. If that plumb line leads us to seek violence and vengeance as the solution to conflict, then it is false. If that plumb line leads us to neglect recognizing God’s abundance in our midst, then it is false.

God is setting a plumb line in our midst so we can discern what is just and right! May we never stop searching for it, and should we find it, then may we base how we live our lives on it.